Resonant mechanical scanners are employed in a wide variety of applications. Resonant mechanical scanners are widely used because of their high reliability, long life and low power consumption. Sinusoidally oscillated mechanical scanners have minimum energization requirements and are mechanically and electronically simple in design, fabrication and operation. A sinusoidally driven scanning system, however, is inherently limited in that the scanning velocity varies throughout the entire scan angle. A sinusoidal drive signal has a scanning velocity which is a time varying value, i.e., non-constant, especially adjacent the sinusoidal maxima and minima. Thus, a sinusoidal scanning mirror experiences non-linear scanning due to a reduction in scan velocity as the sinuisoidal maxima and minima are approached. Non-linear scanning reduces the overall scan efficiency of the system.
Non-linear scan velocities due to sinusoidal drive signals may be compensated for by a variety of mechanical, optical and/or electronic techniques. One possible mechanical technique is overscanning wherein the amplitude of the sinusoidal drive signal is increased so that the mechanical scanner is driven through a wider-than-necessary scan angle. Thus, in effect only the linear velocity portion of the sinusoidal drive signal is utilized. Since a portion of the scan angle is not being utilized by the scanning system, however, such a mechanical technique results in very poor scan efficiency.
Another mechanical technique for improving scan linearity is to combine a number of resonant mechanical scanners having appropriate amplitudes, phase relations and frequencies (a predetermined fundamental frequency and one or more exact harmonics thereof) to form an optical scan pattern which is the result of the superposition of the beam deflection of each of the individual resonant mechanical scanners. Such a system is relatively complex both mechanically and electronically.. Another means of obtaining scan linearity involves the use of an optical element in conjunction with the resonant mechanical scanner. An optical element disposed in front of the mechanical scanner causes a divergence in the scanning beam at the end of the scan angle, the outward divergence of the beam by the optical element compensating for the reduction in scan velocity due to the sinusoidal drive signal. The optical element in such a system, however, must be designed and fabricated to precisely match the particular scan amplitude of the resonant mechanical scanner, a decided limitation. Further, using an optical element to diverge the scan also increases the beam width.
One electronic technique to compensate for the non-linear scan generated by a sinusoidal drive signal utilizes electronic circuitry to subdivide the period of the sinusoidal drive signal into a number of equal subparts. Those subparts of the period adjacent the sinusoidal maxima/minima are not used for scanning operations. This technique is somewhat similar to the mechanical overscanning technique in that the scanning system is non-operational during a portion of the sinusoidal drive signal, thereby resulting in very poor scan efficiency.